


wade in the water

by poisongardens



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fae & Fairies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5780353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisongardens/pseuds/poisongardens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is barely dark yet. Bard wonders if he will ever get used to these long, bright nights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wade in the water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/gifts).



> a short thing i wrote after reading Ias' fic [we must not look at goblin men](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4555251), which just blew me away. i wanted to write something dark and scary too but, well. it turned out a lot less scary than i first intended :') oh well. i think it depends on how you read it. i'm still not sure which way i prefer

 

The first time he sees him he is sitting by the edge of the small tarn waiting for him in the last light of dusk. The mountains make time pass slowly here, he remembers. The air is thick with it, and too sweet.

He looks just like he does in Bard's dreams and he himself feels no different. If this is another dream then it is the first in which he speaks.

“Welcome,” he says. It is not a dream.

_They do not want you to thank them. They only ever live for themselves._

“Why have I come?”

_Do not cross them._

“I did not bring you.”

His eyes are sharp and secret, but not dangerous. They are bright blue with laughter.

“No.” It is true. “You did not.”

When he laughs, the sound… It is water.

“Have you not guessed it?”

I might have, Bard thinks.

“I'm afraid to say it.”

He moves closer now, but keeping a distance still between them. The ground beneath his feat seem to quiver, to sigh. Drops fall onto it from his hair, long and white, still wet from the dark water.

“I wish you would not be afraid.”

_They are unpredictable like weather in spring._

“I wish that, too,” Bard whispers.

_They are the mist that rolls over the swollen marshes._

“Come.”

_Do not let them trick you._

_“Come.”_

He gives in, enough to take the hand reached out to him. Cold, soft, like a mere, late in summer. He wants to swim, to drink in deep gulps, swallowing down mire and mud.

“What are you?”

“You know that.”

He might be playing a game. He might already have won.

“We are well suited for one another.”

Something runs across his skin when Bard thinks that, perhaps he is right.

His eyes are are impossibly deep, not glowing like the rest of him but pulling him in. _Pleading._ Water drips from his hair onto Bard's cheek, runs down into the corner of his mouth.

“You are not human.”

He is leaning even closer when he speaks:

“Neither are you.”

He says this and then gives him a kiss to make him forget there ever was anything other than this. And there isn't. Not when they are close like this. Not when they are giving up secrets, like this.

It is barely dark yet. Bard wonders if he will ever get used to these long, bright nights. There will be no moon tonight; shadow will fall alone, and soon be gone.

“The forest is inviting you home.”

Well, yes. It is, isn't it?

“Let me show you.”

_They will take you with them if they can._

“No,” Bard says. He is smiling now. “I want to take you somewhere.”

 


End file.
